Chapter 15
Zogar
“The sign says, ‘DANGER’.” Stopping, Rosomon tugs on my arm.
I glance down at her. “I’ll keep you safe.
“Do you even know why the danger sign is posted?”
I consider lying to reassure her. “No. My best guess is that elves posted the sign to keep others out.” Even I don’t fully believe that. “But we must enter this park to reach my hoard.”
Her lips twist to the side. “Do we need your hoard? Eldrath offered you some coin.”
“I will not be in debt to an elf.” Nor to anyone. “It’s bad enough I accepted Lucian’s apartment.”
She startles. I raised my voice.
I pull her against me, hoping she’ll take the embrace as an apology, and that my strong arms will offer her a better sense of security.
The park is heavily wooded, but the trail looks well kept.
It’s paved with clay bricks, and has lamp posts at intervals, which cast a yellow glow through the dim red-tinged light pervasive in this city.
“You’ll be safe with me.” I lightly squeeze her. “I promise.”
“What about you?” She slides her soft hand up my arm. “Who’ll keep you safe?”
Bending down, I press my lips against the space between her pale, arched eyebrows. “You’ll keep me safe.”
She laughs. “And how will I do that?”
I grin. “Because I have a duty to protect you, I must guard my life too. Ergo, your mere presence keeps me safe.”
Shaking her head, she chuckles. “I suppose I can’t argue with that logic. Although it’s a somewhat circular argument, don’t you think?”
“Are we here to find my hoard, or to debate logic?” My lips quiver slightly as I fight to keep the hint of a smile from invading my best attempt at a stern expression. Rosomon can lighten most every situation for me, and I’ll never tire of her youthful exuberance, her curiosity, or her wit.
“Then what are we waiting for?” she asks. “Or are you frightened?”
“Frightened?” I laugh. She’s teasing me, pretending it wasn’t her who thought twice about entering this park, after reading the sign.
Taking her hand, I press a kiss against her knuckles, then step onto the cobblestone path.
The trail is easily traversed, but the woods are unusually quiet, as if no bird or animal, not even insects, lives inside them. Already on high alert, this realization doubles my vigilance, and I scan the forest, searching for danger, searching for any sign of life beyond plants, finding none.
I quicken our pace. The sooner we find my hoard, the sooner we can leave this eerie place.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Rosomon says.
Her face is full of joy and wonder. Hasn’t she noticed the strange stillness?
“I’ve never seen such pretty birds,” she says. “So colorful and tiny. They’re like the hummingbirds we have in Achotia, but much brighter.”
My gaze darts through the woods around us. I have far better eyesight than she does, yet see no birds.
“Was that a joke?” I ask. “This forest is devoid of life.” All around us, dark trees loom like sentinels, like harbingers of death.
She laughs.
I hold her hand tightly against my side and quicken our pace. “Are you laughing, because your claim to see birds was a joke?”
“No.” She tips her head to the side, eying me quizzically. “You’re the one who made a joke. How can you not see the birds?”
“Rosomon, there are no birds in this forest.”
She stops, and my next long stride nearly tugs her off her feet. Her eyes are wide, and she shakes her head. “Stop teasing, Zogar. It isn’t funny.” Her body jerks, and her hand leaves mine. “Ow.” She jerks again, touching her arm. “What was that? Ow!”
I can’t see what’s hurting her, so I wrap my arms around her, trying to cover as much of her body as possible.
“Fuck!” Something sharp pricks my leg. And then my arm.
I finally see them, or rather they let me see them. Sprites! No wonder this park was marked dangerous.
“What are they?” Rosomon asks, her face buried against my chest.
“Sprites. Fire sprites based on their sting.”
“How do we stop them?” She tenses, no doubt stung again.
“They can’t be stopped.” How can I cover every inch of her?
“Why didn’t the sign mention sprites?” she asks. “Ow! They really sting.”
“That they do.” I grit my teeth against the intense burning. They seem to be particularly attacking my arms, as if trying to get to her. “Sprites sting,” I say as calmly as I can, under the constant barrage, “but they’re harmless.”
Her body twitches in pain. “This is harmless?” She trembles in my arms.
“The stings leave no lasting damage.” At least not to bodies. But many have been driven mad by sprites. “I’ll carry you the rest of the way.”
She doesn’t object, and so I lift her into my arms. With one arm around my neck, she clings to me as she swings her other arm, trying to swat them away.
“Don’t do that.” I capture her arm, trying in vain to cover it as even more sprites swarm toward us. “The more you fight them, the more will come.”
My pain is beyond intense now. Rosomon is not only smaller, this is her first sprite attack, and I can only imagine how painful and terrifying this is for her. I stagger as quickly as I can down the path, holding her in my arms as she yelps and twists.
“Try to ignore them.” A swarm attacks my ears, and I fight to follow my own advice, but the pain is like a thousand hot spikes.
“Stop,” Rosomon says. “Look. Back there.”
I look in the direction she’s pointing, but see nothing but more forest, the same as it looks in every other direction—dark and ominous and full of death.
“Can we go that way? It’s so beautiful.”
“My queen.” I hold her tightly. “There’s nothing there but trees.”
“Can’t you see the gardens?” she asks. “The path? The fountain?”
Rosomon’s hallucinating. Fear takes hold of my chest in a way I’ve never felt before. Have the sprite’s stings already driven her mad? What will I do without my wife’s wise council, and her ability to calm me?
“There’s nothing there, my queen,” I whisper softly in her ear. “We must continue on the path. It’s headed in the right direction.”
She shakes her head, struggling in my arms and pointing, as I stride down the path.
A massive swarm of sprites attacks us, and I drop down into a crouch, holding her and trying to protect her body with my own.
“Please,” she says. “Take the other path.”
“There is no other path.” How can I convince her there’s nothing there? “Rosomon,” I say softly. “You’re hallucinating. It’s only the sprites.”
She nods. “I know it’s the sprites. They’re showing us the way.”
She’s so far gone. But… I rise back to standing. While we’ve been stopped, the stinging has lessened. I take two strides down the path, and they attack again.
“Go back,” Rosomon cries out in my arms. “That way!” Her eyes are full of certainty and desperation.
“How do you know?” I ask softly.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know, it’s just… What if the sprites’ stings are a warning?”
I let that settle in with the other knowledge I have about sprites.
Some believe they’re distant cousins of the fae, but the fae take no responsibility or interest in sprites.
And given the markings on that map, I suspect that even the fae avoid this forest. Certainly, the elves do.
Frankly, I know nothing of the tiny creatures, beyond the pain and mischief they cause.
I’ve never considered that they might have intelligence or a way to communicate with other species.
“You really see another path?” I ask Rosomon. “Are you sure it’s not a hallucination?”
“Let me down,” she says. “If you can’t see the path, I’ll lead you.”
I still believe she’s suffering from sting madness, but as long as we don’t go too far off track, it can’t hurt to let my wife win this small battle of wills. And until we go the direction she wants, I can’t prove her wrong.
The swarming sprites have backed off for the moment, so I set her feet on the ground. Taking my hand, she tugs me back down the brick path, and then into the forest.
As we step off the path, it’s thick with branches, but I’m shocked to find our passage relatively easy. And so far, the sprites have left us alone.
“This way.” Rosomon leads me through the underbrush, dodging trees and walking as lightly and easily as if we were on a gravel path through well-groomed gardens. It’s possible that’s what she sees.
Curious, I drop her hand and turn back toward the main path.
Instantly, sprites attack my face so brutally I have to close my eyes. I swat against them, but their numbers multiply. I know better than to bat them away but can’t help myself. It’s too painful.
I crouch, trying to decrease the surface area available for attack.
Rosomon’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Come,” she says. “Trust me. Please. The sprites are showing me the way.” She brushes her hand over my forehead and the pain from the stings lessens.
Opening my eyes, I drink in her beauty, her compassion—and her confident certainty. I remain skeptical, but Rosomon clearly believes in this literal fairy tale. Even if she’s mad, I must support her.
I rise. She retakes my hand and continues to lead me through the forest. As we progress, her other hand gestures, and she describes what she’s seeing—gardens, statues, flowers. Some of her movements indicate that she believes she’s touching these things.
Another fear enters my mind. All of this—both the sprites and this garden illusion—could be the work of some mage trying to keep me from my hoard.
“Aren’t the roses beautiful?” she says. “And look at the wisteria climbing this arch! It must have been growing here for a century.”
Seeing none of this, I try to concentrate on where she’s leading me, relating it to my memories of the map, so we can eventually get back on course.
If we hadn’t taken this detour, we’d have come upon a bridge that crosses a small river.
I try to picture the terrain as it was the last time I was here.
The river was there, but not the bridge drawn on the map.
Across the river, the landscape used to be rocky, with large moss-covered boulders that covered entrances to underground caves.
Unless it’s changed considerably, once we get across the bridge, I’m certain I can find my way through the maze of boulders to the place where I long ago placed shields to guard the cave’s entrance.
I draw a deep breath. I’m confident that the magic I cast to guard my hoard has held.
But I’m just as confident that we’re headed in the wrong direction.
And yet, Rosomon keeps moving forward, tugging me after her.
Her mood is light and awe filled as she enjoys this imaginary garden, and I lack the will to disturb that.
Also, I’m grateful that the sprites are no longer attacking.
But the sprites are likely leading us into a trap. This has gone on long enough.
I stop, and Rosomon’s hand slips from mine.
She turns to face me. “What’s wrong?”
I step up and take her face in my hands. “You think you know where you’re going. I understand that. But this is the wrong direction. The sprites are tricking you.”
She frowns. “How do you know that for sure?”
I want to tell her that I’m certain, but the truth is I feel less certain than she clearly does.
“I know where my hoard is,” I say softly, feeling like the entire forest is listening. “We need to go back to that path, then cross a bridge over the river. Soon after that, we’ll find a series of boulders, and I well know the route from there.”
Uncertainty flashes in her eyes, but then she looks behind us again as if considering what her path looks like compared to the one I described.
“I know the sprite stings are painful,” I say softly. “But we’ll survive them. We must.”
Breaking out of my hold, she backs away and then points through the trees. “The river you mentioned,” she says. “It’s right there. Can’t you hear it?”
I move up to join her, and suddenly I do hear the sound of water. Perhaps we can follow the riverbank to the bridge to get back on course.
I follow her to the water’s edge. She bends to cup some of the water in her hands and takes a small drink. In the distance, a heavy stone bridge drapes over the river.
“Come,” I say. “Let’s follow the riverbank and cross at the bridge.” I take a few steps, and the sprites attack.
Shouting and swatting, I stagger back toward Rosomon, and she wraps her arms around me.
When I open my eyes, I focus more clearly on the bridge. Trolls!
In the dark shadows under the bridge, the distinct yellow glint of lurking troll eyes flashes. Are the sprites making me hallucinate, too?
“What is it?” Rosomon asks. “What do you see?” Her hands cling to me tightly.
“I’m…” I shake my head. “Perhaps using the bridge is dangerous.”
“Look,” she says. “We can cross there.”
I turn. She’s pointing toward a series of boulders downstream in a place where the river narrows, and…
I blink several times. A line of sprites is marking a path toward it.
At this moment, they do look like the tiny birds Rosomon first mistook them for, their skin shimmering in jewel-toned colors even in the dim red light.
I still believe they’re trying to trick us, but don’t want to deal with trolls. Troll magic will prevent me from crossing, unless I meet their demands, and deep in my gut I know that what the trolls will demand from me is Rosomon. A thought even more horrifying than fording this river.
Taking her hand, I follow the sprites toward the boulders, and they flit and flicker around us. I can almost imagine that they’re talking, and my heart fills with gratitude.
There’s a very high chance we’re being misled, but it’s difficult to deny that the sprites seem pleased with the direction we’re taking. And they were very displeased when we were headed toward that bridge.